Children at a community health event in Timor Leste, one of the locations where Health Alliance International has maternal-child health programs. Photo credit: Jessica Dyer (MPH '15), George Povey Fellow.

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Christopher Murray Previews Global Burden of Disease Study

Christopher J.L. Murray, a UW professor in global health and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), on Dec. 6 gave a preview of a long awaited study (The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study) from IHME involving hundreds of researchers around the world. The study to be published in The Lancet on Dec. 14 is the first time the journal has dedicated an entire issue to one study, and it is the largest issue in the journal's history. GBD 2010 looks at the biggest burden of disease for 21 regions and three time periods – 1990, 2005, and 2010. The results reveal substantial shifts in health challenges over the past 20 years; i.e, more young adults then children dying, and a rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as obesity and diabetes. And sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by disease related to Millennium Development Goals 4, 5, and 6 -- child mortality, maternal child health, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. The talk at UW's Kane Hall was part of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) regional meeting in Seattle. The IOM is an independent nonprofit organization that provides advice to members of Congress and other decision makers on how to advance the nation’s health and health care. Harvey Fineberg, president of IOM, said of the report: "This study is a wake up call to rethink mental health to the totality of health care." Jürgen Unützer, director of UW's AIMS Center (Advancing Integrated Mental Health Solutions), which pioneered integrated mental health care, was one of the panel members, along with King Holmes, chair of the Department of Global Health, and Deborah Nickerson, professor of genome sciences. All the panelists called the study groundbreaking in advancing solutions to improved health.